


when i don't remember you

by angelatflightrisk



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, No happy endings, no happy middles, nothing is happy this is a tearfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 14:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11254956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelatflightrisk/pseuds/angelatflightrisk
Summary: Bart was eighteen when he started forgetting things.





	when i don't remember you

“Good morning.”

His eyes flicker up. They fall on the boy in front of him-- he looks young, he looks… about his own age? His skin is dark, his hair darker, his eyes darker still. He looks gentle, kind, sweet and warm and for some reason meeting his eyes feels like coming home. He’s smiling, lightly, looking at the boy as if he’s trying to study him. He doesn’t mind. Something tells him that happens a lot.

“Good morning,” He returns, softly, his voice coming from his throat lighter than he intended. Sleepier. More gentle, more passive. The boy’s smile grows a little, and it’s contagious-- his own grows too, a fraction.

“What’s your name?” He asks, “Do you know?”

He falters a little, hesitates. No. He doesn’t know. His eyes fall down, onto the table where his hands rest. He’s too embarrassed to answer, so he doesn’t. The silence that follows doesn’t last long before the boy fills it for him.

“Bart,” He says gently, “Your name is Bart.”

“Oh,” Bart says. Yes, Bart. That sounds right, that sounds familiar. The boy is still smiling when he looks back up, and it coaxes a smile back onto his own face, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” A small laugh comes up from the boy’s throat, a beautiful laugh, a melodic laugh. A kind of warmth rises in Bart’s chest, a sort of force that connects him to this stranger. It’s a happy sound, and it coaxes a sort of gentle happiness to rest in his chest. He smiles.

“Do you know how old you are?”

“I’m, um…” Bart. His eyes flicker down, his brow creasing a little. Bart. How old is he? “I’m… eighteen?”

“You’re nineteen. It’s okay.”

Bart smiles a small, apologetic smile, his head tilting to the side slightly, a curl spilling into his eyes. It’s an instinctive mannerism, one he wasn’t aware he had. The boy smiles, but for a second Bart thinks he’s wincing. Just a little. Like something he saw hurt him a little. He reaches across the table, tucks that curl behind Bart’s ear.

A kind of warmth rises in him, a fuzzy feeling, a gravitational pull that makes him feel like this boy is… familiar.

“How old are you?” Bart asks the boy.

“Twenty-one. Do you know my name?”

No, Bart doesn’t know his name. For some reason it sends a pang of guilt through his veins. He looks away, but the boy is quick in reassuring him.

“No-- it’s okay, I didn’t expect you to. My name is Jaime.”

“Jaime?” Bart looks back up at him, meets those dark eyes. He smiles, nods, everything about his interactions, his movement, everything about him so incredibly gentle.

“Yes. Bart, I need to ask you about some things.”

“Okay,” He nods, that smile still on his lips, “I have a question too.”

That seems to throw Jaime for a loop, but he nods anyway, a small, jerky, confused motion, “Uh-- yeah, sure. What is it?”

“Are you a doctor?”

“A doctor?” Jaime laughs, softly, the look in his dark eyes looking almost… fond? “No, Bart, I’m not a doctor. I am helping your doctors, though.”

“Oh,” Bart nods, not really understanding. Jaime seems to get this, so he elaborates.

“I’m just… it’s very important to me to help you. So I’m here even though I’m not a doctor. They kinda just tell me what to do.”

“To help me?” Bart asks softly, that tilt of his head making curls spill into his eyes, “Why?”

“Well, I’m…” Jaime smiles a gentle smile, as he reaches across the table to brush the curls away, “Maybe I’ll explain it to you later, okay? For now, I do have questions for you.”

Bart nods, lightly, smiling a little smile that makes Jaime’s grow. He’s… very cute. Sweet, kind, warm. He’s like the protagonist’s love interest of a cliche romance movie, with that beautiful smile.

 

_“Bart, amorcito, stop squirming. You asked to watch this movie.”_

_“Yeah, but-- it’s a cheesy romance movie, and you’re my boyfriend, and we’re watching a cheesy romance movie. That means you have to snuggle with me!”_

 

Bart blinks. What was that? When did it happen? It’s just a scrap of a memory, a scrap of a scrap of a memory, and it’s like letting go of a kite, getting so close to catching it just for the strongest wind on planet earth to rip it from your grasp just before you can. Left with a sense of emptiness, of unsatisfaction, of knowing that is was right there and that now it’s gone.

“Bart?” A gentle voice, a light nudge back to reality. Bart’s gaze turns back up.

“Yes?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

Bart blinks once, twice, and then his brow furrows as he shakes his head, “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry…”

“No, no, it’s okay. I asked if you know what you look like?”

Bart stares back at him for a moment before looking down at his hands on the table, “…I guess I’m white.”

It earns him a little laugh from Jaime, “Yes, you are.”

“And… I think I have… freckles?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere,” Jaime tells him gently. His voice has a different kind of lightness to it when he speaks this time, but Bart can’t place it, “Your nose, your cheeks, your shoulders… everywhere.”

“I think… I think my hair might be curly. Just a little bit. And… red?”

“It’s more auburn. But yes.”

“My eyes are gold.”

It makes Jaime stop, it makes his eyes lock onto Bart’s, it makes his shoulders tense. Anxiety rises in Bart’s chest, his own shoulders tensing up, every muscle tensing up.

“Was… um, was that wrong?”

“Your eyes are green,” Jaime tells him, gently, so incredibly gently, so soft, so sweet. His hand comes up, tucks a curl behind Bart’s ear, “They’re green. It’s okay.”

It sounds wrong. Bart’s suddenly certain that his eyes are gold, very certain, but he stays quiet. He nods, gently, offering a small, “Okay.”

“What about your family? Do you know anything about them?”

His eyes turn down as he tries to remember. He can’t. He’s too ashamed to admit that he doesn’t know anything about his family, so he doesn’t answer. Jaime fills the silence.

“It’s okay. We have one more thing, and then there’s no more questions. Okay?”

Jaime watches Bart as he nods, and then he opens a file folder. There are pictures inside. Jaime takes the first one, flips it upside down on the table, and looks back up at Bart.

“I’ll show you these pictures, and you tell me what you think about when you see them.”

The first picture is a bag of snack food propped up against a backpack. The whole thing looks like it’s in a garage, or… maybe a locker room. A hoodie is tossed haphazardly beside it. Bart stares at the picture, trying to use it as a means to conjure up lost memories. In the end, he simply blinks, glances up at Jaime, and says, softly, “Um, snacks.”

“I need the answers to not be obvious ones, okay? Don’t worry, it’s okay. Try your best.”

Frustration, but it’s small. He looks back down, stares at the picture until he comes up with, “Scavenger. Friends. Um-- Bonding?”

Jaime smiles lightly, sets the picture aside. There’s no indication to whether that was an accurate answer or not, and Bart has no idea himself.

The next picture is of a cat, a kitten really. She’s all white with scatters of tan splotches-- on her ear, on the tip of her tail, on one paw. A smile finds itself on Bart’s face, pure and bright. Happiness feels like it’s flooding his veins. The kitten sits on a bed, over a blue hoodie, meowing at the camera.

“Happiness,” Bart says, that smile still on his face, “Falling asleep. Comfort, warmth, and… birthdays.”

The next one is a strangely homey setting, like a living room and a kitchen area but in a cave; “Home. Friends. Team… pizza.”

A costume, like a superhero’s costume. Yellow and red, a lightning bolt on the chest; “Family. Loss. Inadequacy, feeling like you’re not enough. Um… retro? And identity.”

A little ice cream shop, that recurring blue hoodie across a table; “First dates. Being really nervous and talking too much. Stomachaches.”

A desert, at night time with the sky filled with stars; “Broken curfew. Um--” He glances up at Jaime, like he’s asking for permission to say what he’s going to say before he says, “Having sex. Like, really awkward _back-of-your-boyfriend’s-car_ sex. But fun anyway? I mean-- it’s sex.” It earns him a laugh from Jaime, and that makes him smile too.

The last one makes him stop. It’s a picture of what looks like a wedding. Nobody’s there, it’s just the setting. Traditional white decor, outside, a lake visible in the background. Flowers. Something inside of Bart’s head freezes, and it makes him stop. He doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t understand.

“Bart?”

Bart doesn’t reply for a long moment before he says, softly, “Every good thing you can feel. Smiling so hard you think your face is going to fall off. Love. Lots and lots of love, and-- and feeling invincible. Feeling like nothing bad could ever happen to you ever again because he’s here, he’s here and you’re together and everything is perfect.”

Jaime just stares at him. He doesn’t put the picture down, he just stares. He looks like somebody hit him, and it makes Bart feel guilty, so guilty, guilty down to his core.

“I… um, that’s all I have. I’m sorry.”

Jaime doesn’t say anything, just looks at him. His gaze finally breaks, and he puts the pictures away. Bart watches him, letting the silence hang in the air for a while before he speaks again, “Um?”

“Yes?”

“You said you’d explain why you’re here if you’re not a doctor.”

“I… did say that, didn’t I?” Jaime says softly, offering a small smile, “I’m here because the doctors think I’m the best person to help you along.”

“How?”

“Well… I’m at an advantage, mostly because of my husband.”

“You have a husband?” Bart asks, that habitual tilt of his head spilling a curl, “Oh. I wish I had someone. A husband...”

Jaime smiles a small smile, looks to the side. Like he doesn’t know what to say. Bart’s scared for a second that he’s made it awkward, and he’s quick to try and fill the silence again.

“Is he cute?”

Jaime laughs at that, running a hand back through his hair before he looks back up, meets Bart’s eyes, “Absolutely adorable. He’s beautiful.”

“That’s so sweet. He’s really lucky.”

The boy looks up, and he’s smiling. Bart smiles back. His skin is dark, his hair darker, his eyes darker still. He looks kind of young, maybe Bart’s age?

“Are you a doctor?”

“No, I’m not a doctor. But I am helping your doctors.”

“Oh. How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

Bart nods, softly, his eyes flickering to the wall for a moment, “And… how old am I?”

“You’re nineteen.”

“Nineteen,” Bart mumbles, looking at him from across the table, “Twenty-one. Nineteen.” His brow creases, and he can feel confusion coming up in his chest.

“You’re nineteen,” The boy repeats, gently. Bart looks at him, and then offers a little smile as he nods.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Jaime.”

“Jaime. Jaime.”

The boy-- Jaime-- smiles, a small smile, and it looks to Bart a little hurt. Bart looks at him for a moment, before the words leave his throat without his ability to stop them, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Yes.”

“Why are you here if you aren’t a doctor?”

“Your doctors thought I had an advantage, because of my husband.”

“Oh,” Bart nods, lightly, gently, “Your husband?”

“Don’t worry about it, Bart,” The boy tells him. His hand comes up, tucks a little curl behind Bart’s ear. Something about this boy feels good, feels familiar, feels like home. Makes him feel like there’s some universal gravitational force connecting them, pulling them together.

“You have other sessions to go to. It’s time for you to go, okay?”

“Okay,” Bart nods, standing up. He looks at the boy again, just watching him.

“Jaime,” He says softly, his gaze coming down, “...Nineteen?”

“Twenty-one. You’re nineteen, I’m twenty-one.”

“I’m Bart.”

“You’re Bart.”

“What color are my eyes?”

“Bart.” The voice isn’t Jaime’s. It comes from behind him. He turns, looks behind him, meets the eyes of a doctor. He doesn’t want to leave, he wants to stay here. But he can’t decide why, so he turns his head enough to give Jaime a small smile, “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Bart. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

 

The doctor crosses over to Jaime, sits where Bart was a few moments ago, “How did it go?”

“The same as usual,” Jaime tells him, trying to shake the uneasiness from his bones left in Bart’s wake, “but… He looked like he was retaining information a little better this time. Up until the end, I mean. He remembered something he said, and he didn’t start forgetting things until almost ten minutes before the end of the session.”

“Really?”

Jaime looks up, meets his eyes as he stands in the doorway. Wally. With him, Dick. He takes the seat next to Jaime, and Dick takes the one next to him. Jaime nods, maybe a little too curtly. Warmth is still curling through his veins, his fingertips aching from touching him, their connection and it’s complications tugging rough at his heart.

“Yeah, really. Almost every time we meet he asks if I’m a doctor, and then I tell him I’m not, and then he asks why I’m here if I’m not a doctor. And I always tell him I’ll explain later, and by the time we get done with the questions he’s completely forgotten.”

His eyes turn up to gauge responses to that, but he’s met with total silence. His gaze flickers back down before he forces it up again, continuing the story.

“But we got finished today and he mentioned it.”

“Meaning he asked again?”

“No, meaning he said ‘earlier you said you’d explain…’.”

The doctor breaks his silence, taking out a pad and a pen ridiculously quickly, with a ridiculous amount of energy, “He retained memory of a dialogue that took place almost an hour prior? That could be a sign of very significant progress, Jaime. It could mean we’re onto something.”

“There’s more,” Jaime tells him, turning his attention to Wally, “His answers are more elaborate. They mean more. They’re not one-word anymore, they’ve been… slowly, steadily getting more detailed. He gave me an entire paragraph for the wedding photo.”

“Thank you, Jaime,” Dick says, “Is that everything?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll let the doctors know. For now… you should get some rest.”

They leave. Jaime watches them go.

 

 

Bart was eighteen when he started forgetting things.

In their kitchen. Married for a little over a month. The happiest Jaime had ever been in his life, than he was certain he’d ever have the capacity to surpass. He’d walked in.

Bart was sitting at the counter, a shirt that was too big for his lithe frame hanging off of a freckled shoulder. Jaime’s shirt. Curly auburn falling into his pretty green eyes, dark lashes fluttering gently. His hand swirling his spoon in hot cocoa. Jaime remembered affection filling him. Love. Everything good and sweet that you could feel, everything good you could think about someone.

Jaime had kissed his cheek, kissed the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. His husband had laughed, a small sound, an beautiful sound. A happy sound.

“Good morning, baby.”

“Good morning,” Bart had returned. His voice had a note of sleepiness to it, lightness. A small smile on his lips when Jaime pulled back to kiss his forehead.

“You made cocoa?” Jaime had asked.

“What?”

Jaime remembered being confused, bewildered. He remembered gesturing to the cup Bart was holding, watching those green eyes fall onto it.

“Oh,” He’d said, “I guess I did.”

“You guess?”  
“I don’t really remember doing that, but I guess I did.”

“Bart?” Sitting beside him, watching him. Those green eyes trained on the cup in his hand, a confused crease in his brow. His eyes fluttering lightly, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. A chill in Jaime’s veins, that solid feeling that something was very wrong.

“Bart, baby. Are you okay?”

“I… I guess. I’m just confused.”

“Did you hit your head?”  
“I don’t remember…”

Those eyes fluttering again, turning up from the cup to focus on Jaime. There was something in his eyes, something empty, like getting lost in the woods, unable to find your way or where you came from. He blinked, once, twice.

“I don’t…” Bart had said, muttered, his gaze flickering over his husband, “Who are you, again?”

Jaime remembered the mug shattering against the kitchen tile as it slipped from Bart’s hands.

 

 

He remembered hours later, holding his husband’s hand as the League doctors tested on him, took his vitals and scanned him and poked him.

He remembered holding Bart while he cried, remembered when he told Jaime that he was scared. He was shaking. Jaime remembered feeling helpless, carding his fingers through those auburn curls and telling him it was okay, wanting more than anything for him to stop crying. Wanting more than anything to make it okay for him.

He remembered getting the results. Months later. Months of testing, of Bart forgetting things, of not knowing what was happening to him. They’d been waiting to hear back together, Bart holding his hand tightly. He was scared. Jaime was too.

He remembered. Soft curls against Jaime’s shoulder, his lover falling asleep against him. Holding him until the doctors came, continuing to hold him when they arrived.

The first theory had been early onset Alzheimer’s, Jaime learned. That theory was debunked, and the reality was worse.

There was something in Bart, they told him. Attached to his spine. A device. A weapon. Jaime remembered asking if they could operate, get it out. The heavy silence.

No, they couldn’t operate. It was small, but that was when it was dormant. It had activated a month or two ago, when Bart first started forgetting. It was out of their hands at this point, and if there was any hope of finding a cure it would be incredibly difficult. Almost impossible.

Five years ago, the Reach left the Earth. But they left something on Earth behind them, something that laid dormant for years until it showed itself and the terrible effects. A bug, a virus, a weapon. They’d been testing it, evidently, and Impulse was deemed a suitable test subject, when he was abducted. Nobody ever knew, and maybe they could have stopped it if they had.

Jaime remembered listening to all this news, taking it in. His lover sound asleep on his shoulder, oblivious. It was the scariest thing in the world when he woke up a few hours later with a sleepy smile on his face, looking like everything was alright. Like there wasn’t a problem.

He’d forgotten there was a problem to begin with.

 

 

Miss Martian’s telepathy didn’t work. The bug started an attack on the brain-- not on the mind. His brain was literally deteriorating, changing. Not dissimilar to Alzheimer’s, but different. Bart knew Reach-speak now, somehow. Like a second language. The most the doctors could gauge was that it was a side effect of the main attack on his brain. Sometimes he’d slip into it and not switch back to english for days.

He’d sleep. A lot. Sometimes for days. And when he did stay awake, he was sleepy, light, everything about him soft and fragile. Weak. Undoubtedly a very intentional side effect.

 

 

“Good morning, baby,” Jaime remembered saying. A little smile, a pretty smile. A sleepy smile.

“Good morning.”

“You were crying last night,” Jaime told him. He didn’t look up from his cocoa. Jaime watched him for a while before continuing, “Did you have a nightmare?”

“I don’t remember. I guess I did.”

Bart looking up from his mug. A little tilt of his head, spilling some curls into his eyes. It was such a cute habit, something he did so often. Jaime smiled, fondly, lovingly, reached across the table to tuck those curls behind his ear. His lover had smiled.

“What’s your name?”

“Jaime.”

“Oh. What’s my name?”

“Bart.”

A small nod.

It was that, everyday, every morning. Answering the same questions, meeting those green eyes that got more and more empty with every passing day. At night, holding him while he laid passively, idly, so still.

He only got worse. He started being harder to wake up and too easy to put to sleep. He started speaking Reach, often unable to slip back out. It was terrifying, even if Khaji had no trouble translating for Jaime.

[It isn’t anything special, Jaime Reyes] Khaji Da’s voice was gentle in his head, tactful, like he was afraid Jaime would blow up, or burst into tears, [He said ‘good morning’]

 

 

Nothing the League’s scientists and doctors tried helped. Miss Martian didn’t. All of their tests and their pills and their therapy didn’t. Weeks turned to months, months to a year.

“Jaime, it isn’t safe for him to live here anymore.”

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was going to happen, had to happen, eventually. The doctor continued when Jaime didn’t.

“We know you’re trying, but the simple truth is that you don’t know how. Not by yourself. There is absolutely no chance in curing him if we don’t move him to where we can monitor him, and I’m worried we’re running out of time.”

“Time?”

The doctor hesitated. Jaime’s blood ran cold, and the man forced himself to meet Jaime’s eyes as he said, “Jaime… he’s dying.”

Jaime couldn’t bring himself to answer, to respond, to process.

“His condition, its purpose was to put him in a weakened state, much like the additive in the Reach drink. We know that, but… well, Bart was the first human trial, and we think the Reach’s weapon wasn’t perfect. It’s too much-- his brain is deteriorating, and it isn’t stopping. He may be unsalvageable, and if he is… if he is--”

“I’m going to lose him.”

 

 

The little house felt too empty without him. Bart was only gone for a week or so when Jaime moved too, to aid in his treatment however he could. To be able to keep that pretty smile in his life.

 

 

“Bart?”

The boy looks up, like he was somewhere else, like he was just snapped back to reality by Jaime’s voice. He looks pale in the moonlight, washed out, sickly. He is sickly, but here in the dark he looks more fragile, smaller, more defenseless. He smiles a pretty smile, tilts his head.

“Hello.”

“What are you doing out of bed?”

“I’m not sleepy,” He explains, simply. He’s in Jaime’s doorway-- Jaime’s door is across the hall from his.

The doctors found that trying to maintain that Jaime is his lover every day was proving to be too stressful. Excessive affection made him scared, stressed him too much, and potentially accelerated his condition. In kind, Jaime pretended to be a stranger, an acquaintance. A medical assistant.

Bart slept across the hall, and they kept his door open in case of emergencies. Jaime kept his own door open, just so he could make sure he was there. Just to see him. Just to know he was close by as he slept, to know he was safe and breathing.

“You’re not?” Jaime puts his pen down. Bart shifts in the doorway.

“No. I couldn’t sleep, I tried,” Bart explains. There’s a small crease in his brow as he looks down, thoughtful.

“You should still go back to bed, okay?” Jaime suggests, gently, standing from his desk to cross the room to the doorway. Bart whines, a small, childish sound. It’s achingly familiar. It reminds Jaime of simpler times, better times. Jaime telling him something, always the rational one, the responsible one. Receiving that little whine in response.

“I really can’t sleep, Jaime. Don’t make me go to bed.”

Everything stops.

Jaime stops. Freezes in his tracks, his blood turning to ice, his skin freezing over. It's like the universe itself has frozen, snapped, shattered. Jaime feels like he's falling. Those green eyes land on him, big and bright and beautiful as ever. Empty as they have been for the past year. But maybe there’s a flicker of something. Small.

Jaime doesn’t have any words, doesn’t know what he can possibly say. He hasn’t spoken to Bart since this morning, and the boy never remembers anything past a few minutes. But he knows Jaime’s name-- he said it.

His lover stops pouting in favor of a small smile. He blinks, once, twice. The flicker is gone.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

A fluke, maybe. But as the boy turns to go back to his bed, Jaime prays to God that it isn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think, what you want to see, request stuff, draw me things, WHATEVER JUST TALK TO ME my tumblr is
> 
> https://crashtacular.tumblr.com/
> 
> i love comments!!! i live for them!!! i check for them everyday please comment!


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